Yes, I know it's not Sunday, but I thought that you might be interested in listening to the episode of Open Country that was broadcast on 6 December at 6am since I doubt f many of you were above the covers at that time.

The programme was broadcast from Settle and was about the Settle hydro scheme which is causing a fair bit of concern here at present.  Regular readers will recall that I have talked about the scheme before on a number of occasions and in principle I'm not against it.  However there is far to little information in the application currently available to determine whether or not the scheme will have an adverse impact on our migratory salmonids.  So we must continue to press for a thorough Environmental Impact assessment that will show conclusively whether the abstraction of water needed to generate sufficient power to make this scheme viable will prevent our salmon and sea trout from ascending the Settle fish pass when they want to.

As an added bonus there is a long interview with Neil Handy who is well known to many members of the MAA as a passionate guardian of the upper Ribble and its wildlife.

Listen for yourselves at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fr5lb/Open_Country_06_12_2008/

More on Sunday.

Ian